


Jashinist Initiation Ceremony

by lorkhan



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 06:24:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15813264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorkhan/pseuds/lorkhan
Summary: Kakuzu loses a bet with Hidan and is forced to become an initiate of Jashin. This story follows his initiation.*WRITTEN AS PART OF THE KAKUHIDA-RBB OVER SUMMER 2018*link to art done by my partner, officialcryptid: https://crycryptic.tumblr.com/post/177394774358/





	Jashinist Initiation Ceremony

Hidan and Kakuzu came up on a small town that according to intel was the base of a very powerful and well-funded organization who happened to be lucky enough to carry one of the biggest bounties (as a group) that they had seen. Given recent setbacks within the organization of Akatsuki (Kakuzu, remembering the tense conversation with Pain when he broke the news that they were on the razor's edge, winced at the thought of their boss's reaction) it seemed apt to get back into good favor with the Big Men Up Stairs by what he knew how to do best: making some fucking money. As they entered the village the sun was leaking its last bit of light out over the horizon to the west and soon the night would kiss the town and leave them all doomed.

Kakuzu checked his bingo book to make sure he got the number right. "45. There are forty-five people in this town and added up all together, their bounties that is, adds up to more money than we've made or spent in the last five months. We could fund a small army. Luckily, we are a small army."

Hidan laughed. "Hey, I bet I can kill more of them than you."

Kakuzu bellowed a laugh intended to make Hidan feel small. It failed because Hidan was too busy scheming to be brought to fear over an idle threat. "We will each pull our own weights, which is to say, I will kill forty-three and you will kill two."

Hidan scoffed, finally offended by Kakuzu's teasing. "I will definitely kill more than two! I've killed plenty of people on our missions and least of all some meaningless bounties such as this! I'm disappointed that you don't believe in me Kakuzu."

Kakuzu took a deep breath, shaking his head. "Last time we went out, you needed my help to get a handful of children to stop bullying you."

"They weren't JUST children, they were NINJA children who were specifically trained to throw rocks at great distances! You know I'm not a distance fighter!"

"At the ranges they were hitting you from, you could have just stepped to the left."

"But the SUN was out and I didn't want to get sunburned!"

"You're such a baby."

"Ok, fine! Let me show you! Whoever kills the most of them wins!"

"What do I win when I beat you?"

"What do you want?"

Kakuzu thought for a moment. He considered all the dastardly things he could do or force Hidan to do himself. He had been waiting for a moment such as this one for such a long time and finally he could cash it in. "When I win, I want to cut you up and leave you in a hole somewhere. If you get out, fine, but you'll get no help from me."

Hidan pouted and crossed his arms. "Fine! But if I win, then you have to renounce your atheistic lifestyle and start worshiping Jashin!"

Kakuzu chuckled. The deck was stacked in his favor.

"Deal."

"Deal."

They shook hands as the sun finally set over the horizon, allowing night to begin to infect the air around them. "Good luck, Hidan."

Kakuzu took off over the town. In the distance, Hidan heard shouting and screams of agony. Their battle had begun. Hidan entered the house nearest him and the terror of the zombie combo was released upon the village.

Far above the terror of slaughter in the village, Jashin watched his sacrifices amass. He saw Kakuzu's ability for death-dealing and knew that he must be converted. Jashin began the preparations, inspecting Kakuzu's mind to understand the man who dealt in death (and cold hard cash). He found repressed memories, secret fears, and five hearts. Jashin found the core of the monster and foresaw Kakuzu's future worship.

Kakuzu's zombie hearts were hard at work dismantling walls and killing townspeople. In the center of the fray, he stood counting the bodies like sheep. One, two, three... Another few over there... Oh, and can't forget this one that I'm stepping on. In all he had twenty-two bodies. Just less than half. Hidan was set to overtake him if he wasn't careful. He scoured the horizon, obscured by the smoke of fire and bloodshed, for further victims.

On the other side of town, Hidan decapitated a young man and threw his head into the pile of the others. "That makes twenty-two!" he said to himself, smug as ever and excitedly looking for the last person required for the creation of a new Jashinist. At the edge of his vision, he watched a figure turn a corner just out of sight. "Ha! Gotchya!" he jumped after the target.

In the center of town, a man scarcely evaded capture. He turned the corner and found himself near the well. He rested on it in order to catch his breath and did not notice the figure looming on the other side of the clearing. As this figure approached him, he heard a branch break behind him and quickly spun around to see who had followed him. Perhaps someone had survived same as him, he thought. He turned to see Hidan standing between him and the other exit.

The other voice yelled across the newfound arena: "How many did you get!?"

Hidan stared at the target for a moment and then responded. "Twenty-two!"

"Then that means we're tied! And this is the last one!"

"Then you better go catch it!" Hidan leapt forward at the same moment that Kakuzu's minions jumped from the shadows.

The last target dodged as best he could but ended up obliterated from all sides. Jashin breathed in the carnage and felt content.

Below, Hidan held up the head of the last man. He started to laugh and covered his face in the target's blood. "Yeah! I fuckin' did it! I beat you! TWENTY-THREE KILLS!"

Kakuzu punched Hidan in the face. "Fine. You win. But you better not make me do anything stupid."

With the bounty turned in and the spoils collected save the bet, Hidan led Kakuzu down into an abandoned Jashinist temple in Yugakure. "What a... quaint place you're from, Hidan," Kakuzu said wiping his hands of dust and dirt and staring at the artwork on the walls: a series of images of intricate sacrifices and bloody rituals.

They reached the ritual chamber, a room covered in once-intricate-but-now-nearly-destroyed sculptures and statues dedicated to Jashin and his loyal servants. In the center of the chamber was Jashin's symbol, and the few candles lit the room in an eerie way. Kakuzu took in the room and laughed, "I know I uh, don't believe in this shit, but this room is pretty spooky."

Hidan smiled wide and spread his arms out. "Don't you love it!"

He walked to an altar on the south side of the room and started the tedious work of preparing a mixture of blood, various herbs, and holy plants of ancient names. Kakuzu stood in the middle of the room, staring at a statue with its face fallen off. "Is this Jashin?"

"Yeah, though depictions of him vary from account to account. Different sects see him differently, or something, even though they're all wrong."

Kakuzu walked behind Hidan and looked over his shoulder. He saw the mixture in the bowl he was stirring and gagged a little. "Hey uh, what's in that shit?"

"A variety of shit, piss, blood, and viscera. You're gonna love it."

Hidan took out his extendable spear and cut himself on the hand, allowing his blood to flow into the bowl. Kakuzu raised an eyebrow. "We're already blood brothers Hidan, do I really need to drink it again?"

"Yes, asshole. That's part of the ritual. That's how you get initiated."

Kakuzu took a deep breath and sighed. He didn't believe in this shit, and he didn't want to waste his day traveling here and going through this stupid theatrical crap just to make his partner happy. He would've rather fought Hidan to the death than take part in this stupid ritual. He knelt in the circle and waited.

It took Hidan seemingly forever, until suddenly Hidan stuck a finger into the bowl, put it into his mouth, and exclaimed "Perfect!"

He took the bowl to the center of the circle and brought with him too small teacups to imbibe the substance from. "So the way that this starts is I say a prayer, and then we offer your blood to Jashin. If he accepts, you drink of the bowl and I drink of the bowl, and then you are whisked off to Jashin-land where you are welcomed into the folds of Jashinism and set to undergo your initiation. The whole process can take anywhere between four to eight hours, depending on how much Jashin likes you. Sound good?" Hidan explained the general outline for the ritual.

"Do I really have a choice?" Kakuzu asked, making a pained face.

"Nope!"

Hidan began a prayer in a language Kakuzu didn't understand. He twiddled his thumbs waiting for it to be over with. As Hidan's speech reached peak volume he pressed a thumb into Kakuzu's forehead, temporarily blinding Kakuzu. He felt his head swim, his faculties started to flush down further and further until he felt himself in the backseat of his own body.

When his eyes opened, Hidan stood over him. He was no longer in the Jashinist temple, but in an open field covered in blood and viscera and decay. He studied the horizon, the sun stood as a black obelisk in the sky and though it was pitch black it gave off a cold light. Kakuzu felt empty staring at it.

"Welcome to the land of Jashin, initiate. To walk the path towards enlightenment, you must stand and follow those who have come before you." Hidan turned away from Kakuzu and began walking the path leading away from Kakuzu. With every step, a phantom of another person joined him, until an army of Jashinists followed Hidan's lead.

Kakuzu laughed and spat upon the ground. "Fuck this." He stood to turn around but was met with the visage of Jashin.

"It's in your best interest to follow, Mortal."

Primal fear seized Kakuzu's body, the likes of which he had never felt before in his entire life. The small army walking away from him had grown further and further away, and Kakuzu felt compelled to chase after them as quickly as possible. He tried to flash step towards them but could not.

"Chakra does not work in this realm. You can only rely on yourself." Hidan's voice was in Kakuzu's head.

He began to run. His legs were jello from a concoction of fear and whatever strange drugs he was under the influence of, uncertain of their place in material space but knowing, almost innately, to run and run and run without stopping until finally, with a few heaving breaths, Kakuzu caught up with the pack of Jashinists.

He noticed they were approaching a village not unlike the village that Kakuzu and Hidan had just razed. Though its structure was the same, the entities which lived inside of it were different. Kakuzu recognized them for what they were: walking corpses. They wore their wounds of death proudly and one by one paired up with a Jashinist follower until none were left save Kakuzu, who stood at the center of town and searched for his own dead partner.

Jashin rose from the well in front of him, cackling wildly, bones rattling. "In order to join the ranks of Jashinism, we must see your commitment to our cause. As we know your... proclivity for murder and death, it seems unreasonable to ask you to merely provide a sacrifice in our name. No, instead you will be required to assassinate the only enemy that has ever given you difficulty. You will find him on top of that hill, and you will fight him until there is a winner. If you lose, you will wander these wastes forever. If you win, you will join my ranks."

With that Jashin melted into smoke and ash and Kakuzu covered his face so as to not inhale the particles of the god that now engulfed him. Once the cloud cleared, he turned westward and saw the black sun setting over the hill of what had the potential to be his final battle. He steeled himself, taking a deep breath and cracking whatever joints he could reach in that moment. His body moved towards the hill, shambling like a robot in desperate need of oil. The fear and anguish coursed through his veins and he could tell that something terrible waited for him at the top.

The hill was covered in knee high grass that swayed in the breeze. A tree stood at its peak and leaning next to it was a man whose features were obscured by the setting sun. The figure turned to face Kakuzu. "And now our fight begins again..."

The figure lunged forward, going into hand seals and preparing to strike Kakuzu in one decisive moment, but the fear in Kakuzu's belly saw it coming and wrenched him out of harm's way. The seals finished and the figure pressed a hand deep into the dirt. Nothing happened.

"Jutsu doesn't work here, Hashirama Senju."

"So be it."

Hashirama unsheathed the sword on his waist from its scabbard. Kakuzu entered a fighting stance, ready to capture the sword with his bare hands.

Hashirama struck first, a vertical slash towards Kakuzu's head. He dodged out of the way, landing a punch in Hashirama's side that sent him tumbling. "You've grown old."

Hashirama recovered quickly, striking horizontally at Kakuzu's legs. He managed to avoid the majority of the hit but he felt his right shin begin to bleed. "You're not as spry as you used to be either, old man."

Kakuzu faked a left hook and went for a right uppercut, hitting Hashirama square in the jaw. Kakuzu then kneed Hashirama in the stomach and went for a double axe handle on the top of Hashirama's head. Hashirama followed through his keeling over with a somersault behind Kakuzu and managed to slash his back. The fear in Kakuzu's gut boiled over into rage and suddenly his Earth Grudge Fear sealed his wounds.

"My emotions guide me to victory. Death is in your future, Hashirama Senju."

Hashirama Senju felt fear overtake him. He could not move. He desperately tried to channel any of the chakra he once had to the surface but no matter the level of power or desperation or fear he could not get anything to materialize. He allowed himself a moment of panic but as Kakuzu approached him his animal panic fight-or-flight response took over and he lunged forward in a thrust attack, stabbing Kakuzu square in the heart.

Blood pumped out of the wound as black thread tried desperately to tear the blade from Kakuzu's chest. Kakuzu laughed like a madman and watched in awe as Hashirama Senju tore his heart out of his chest with his sword. On his back, an animal mask cracked and fell to pieces.

"I will use your heart to replace the one you just took from me."

Kakuzu advanced on Hashirama, who took this time to focus his attacks on Kakuzu's limbs, which would fall off and then be immediately re-attached by the black threads which coursed through Kakuzu's body. As he got closer, Kakuzu became a monster of destruction.

In one fatal punch, Kakuzu's arm went through Hashirama Senju's chest and out the other side, cradling within it his still-beating heart. He looked Hashirama dead in the eyes and smiled, victorious, before tearing the heart from his body and placing it through the recently sutured hole in his own chest.

Hashirama Senju fell into the grass and immediately began to waste away into dust, like a horrible fever dream. Kakuzu breathed deeply, pleased with himself. He watched the sun set over the village and felt absolute calmness come over him.

Once the sun set, Jashin came down to greet Kakuzu. "You've done well, initiate. You have the strength and courage to call yourself a Jashinist. Whether you choose to or not, you will always be one of my fierce paladins on the front lines of death-dealing. Take your time in this realm, come and go as you please, may I provide what I can for your success."

Kakuzu sat under the tree on the hill and let peace and calm overtake him. The peace in death was so exquisite, he thought. Maybe Hidan was actually onto something here.

Eventually his eyelids grew heavy and he felt himself drifting off to sleep. He tried to stir himself a few times but to no effect: his body had been through hell and back and it needed rest, even if it was immortal. He awoke on the floor of the Jashinist temple and looked up at Hidan, who was meditating quietly in front of him.

Kakuzu stood. Hidan's eyes opened and he smiled wide. "Hey! You survived! Welcome back to the land of the living, fellow Jashinist!"

Kakuzu punched Hidan in the face. "That was a load of horse shit. Just a bad dream, nothing more."

Hidan frowned and rubbed his face. "You might be saying that now, but you'll start to see Jashin everywhere you go, in everything you do, and you'll find the faith again. If you don't, bad things are certainly in store for us all."

Kakuzu laughed and shook his head. What a load of shit it all was, he thought: a cocktail of drugs and hallucinations and suddenly he was a pious little cult member. Bullshit. He made his own destiny.

The zombie combo left the Jashinist temple together on their way back to Akatsuki headquarters. Kakuzu still saw Jashin in most of his dreams, but thought little of it. Then, one day, fighting a kid from Konohagakure, Jashin's form loomed over the child as he charged a jutsu he had never seen before, and Kakuzu knew that he was about to take his final breath.


End file.
